Overview

The Avatar finds the true identity of the Mayor, someone plans to help him out, but who? What happens to the Mayor?

Chapter 7: Hi Sho Village Part 2: The Bandit King

Book 1: Air

Chapter 7: Hi Sho Village Part 2: The Bandit King

Scene appears, where we left off. Rong Yan and Yong Ten walk back into the inn and back into their room. The night comes again, as usual they snuck out of the window once again and ran out the gates and into the woods.

Rong Yan sparks an ember in his palm to light their way.

Rong Yan opens his left palm and a little ember sparks up, they continue walking into the woods, then they hear footsteps from a distance they see a person walking slowly up north. Before reacting they see men jump from out of the trees and throw a net on the victim, and as it looks like one of the men carried something that smells of who knows what, that made the victim knock out.

Yong Ten blasted air in the direction that the men had taken the victim, rustling in the trees, Rong Yan looks up, and shoots fire at the trees, to hopefully burn the enemy or whatever is in the trees. All of a sudden eight men jumped out from the trees, and landed on their feet.

Rong Yan and Yong Ten back to back, begin to shoot fire and/or blast air at the men. One of the men flies and hits a tree, and passes out. Yon Ten moves his hands in a circular clockwise motion, and out come little twisters, he air blasts the twisters, and the twisters come into impact with two men.

The twisters spin both men rapidly, and with a big air blast with his staff, both men fly as one hits another tree, and the other flies a few yards out.

Rong Yan inhales, then goes into a khima stance, stomps down lightly, and then with both hands, shoots a strong fire blast, burning the clothing of another. More men jump out of the trees, one of them places a sack on Rong Yan's head, and puts a small pouch full of an unknown red powder where his nose is at, and Rong Yan falls over unconscious.

Powder that the bandits use to knock people unconscious.

Yong Ten blasts, more air waves at the men, one of them throws bolas at his arms and legs, so that he cannot bend, the same man who put the sack over Rong Yan's head, grabbed the small pouch of red powder again, and he blacked out.

They both awaken, with blurred vision, and notice they cannot move as they're tied to a large tree. They see a large bonfire, and black throne with animal pelts as the decoration of the throne itself, there they saw a man sitting holding the blade that belonged to the young woman's husband Utsah. The man sitting on the throne, runs his thumb gently on the edge of the blade.

Bandit camp out in the woods near Hi Sho Village.

The man walks up to the prisoners, Rong Yan and Yong Ten see a tall, rather young man with short-long black hair stopping at the shoulders with two small bangs in front and a medium long goatee, he wore a brown vest with straps around it, and old unkempt trousers the color of black. He also wore boots that were black as well being held together with straps, and he wore a black cloak on his back with a black shrouding hood.

The man looked at the Avatar and began to say, "You shouldn't have attacked us...Avatar.." the man said, "How do you know who I am?" Rong Yan replied, trying to break free, the man looks at him, turns around to stare at the bonfire, with both arms behind his back touching the sheath of his blade.

"My men and I hear everything in these woods, you see you should be lucky that I've saved you!" the man said turning around saying it in Rong Yan's face. "How? You kidnap innocent villagers! You aren't heroes, you are just a bunch of thugs!" Rong Yan yells, at the man.

The man faces the other direction still staring at the bonfire, then turns around, and walks up to the Avatar and says, "You see this?" he pulls the blade that was owned by the man named Utsah, he shows it to Rong Yan then continues, "Thank you, Avatar for finding my blade.." Rong Yan shocked looks at the man who was currently grinning.

"Let them go, I want to speak to them." the man said, two bandits untied Rong Yan and Yong Ten from the large tree, and the bandits lead them to sit on two small wooden logs. The man walks over to his throne, and sits down on it.

"My name is Utsah..Utsah the Bandit King," he said. "If I do say so myself." Rong Yan looks at Yong Ten then asks, "Then why are you using some strange powder to knock people out?" the Bandit King stares at them for a moment, and pulls out a pouch of the strange red powder. "That..mayor..he...he controls his own villagers! That damned old man..did the same to me, he's not alright in the head if you know what I mean.."

Yong Ten looks at Rong Yan, then responds, "We've snuck around at night, the past few days, and investigated the woods, and then passed by his house, we SAW the Mayor evoking with evil spirits!!"

"Or at least we thought we did, he was doing some strange dance, and chanting strange words, the next morning the waiter who had notified us of the old m-" Yong Ten was caught off by a man, in ragged clothing with holes here and there within his clothing.

"Hello, are you two looking for me?" the man said, he greeted Rong Yan and Yong Ten with a hearty hello.

The spy that was undercover as a waiter.

Rong Yan then looked around at the men at work, smithing new weapons. Rong Yan looks at Utsah then asks, "Are these the men that have disappeared recently?" Utsah replies, "That is correct, Avatar, see the strange red powder we make from dried up ash bananas and white jade bush leaves, mixed them together and you get a strong smell that releases any victims from a possessed state, one of the side effects to this powder is that the odor is so strong that it makes the victim knock out on unconscious. We used it on all the men that wandered out here into the woods, we captured them and used it on them to bring them back to the real world."

Rong Yan places his fingers on his chin, then asks, "How is he possessing the men in the first place?" Utsah replies, "The mayor of Hi Sho Village, has always had interest into the dark arts, when his wife was murdered by actual bandits, and his son was extorted by a firebender."

"Something broke in that man, now he's insane, he summons evil spirits through his rituals. The evil spirits possess the villagers, and make them walk into some cave that supposedly leads into the Spirit World. We all know that is the works of an evil spirit but we don't know its name.."

"He works with the evil spirit, the spirit grants him things, and in return the mayor possess the villagers with lesser evil spirits, and sends them off, into the cave where the evil spirit pulls them into the Spirit World and they're never to be seen again. Luckily, we've been able to stop that from happening." Utsah explained.

"We had a plan to strike Hi Sho Village, tomorrow night, we just needed the right people to help us complete the mission. We're a small resistance force against Hi Sho Village, we intend to eliminate the old man." Utsah says.

"Let us lead you to a peaceful waterfall, with a vegetated garden, I've heard stories from travelers that the secret garden has a spiritual connection with the Spirit World." Utsah finished.

Utsah signals two men with giant blades to lead himself, the Avatar, his airbending teacher, and four other bandits to the secret garden. "Men, ready your weapons for any on going threats as we lead the Avatar to the secret garden." he shouted.

The men in the front and the men in the back grabbed hold of their blades, axes, hammers, and spears, the bandits with the blades in the front began to walk out of the camp, as King Utsah, Avatar Rong Yan, and Monk Yong Ten, followed behind the bandits, as they were followed by the last four bandits.

They began walking into the woods, thirty minutes passed by and they immediately stopped, one of the bandits in the front raised his hand for the group to halt, he walked forward and then quickly turned to the left, as he hears rustling in the bushes, he looks up and sees a figure jump through the trees.

He readies his blade, as the others ready their weapons, and Rong Yan and Yong Ten take stances, everyone stands there for a few seconds, then a large lizard climbs down a tree, crosses between them, and climbs another tree, and goes on its way back up the tree making more rustling sounds.

Utsah sheathes his weapon, as well as the men, and the Avatar and the old monk stand idle, the group continues to walk towards the secret garden.

"It was just a large lizard, that is all, let us continue on to the garden!" Utsah said. They continued walking, then eventually they hit a fork in the road as one side has spiderwebs and looked dark, and dangerous, the other road however, had the sun shining brightly, a rainbow, and critters running around.

The man in front stops in front of the forked road, he then looks at the sunny road and then looks at the dark road, he flaps his hand forward to signal go into the direction the dark road, as he leads them into it. "This...way.." the bandit said. "Are you sure its not the other one?" Rong Yan asked.

The left road leads to peaceful harmless road with a rainbow.

He stops and turns to look at Rong Yan, then shakes his head. He continues to walk, and the group looks at their surroundings and readies their weapons. The bandit leading the way then replies, "I've been down this road many times, no need to ready your weapons nothing will attack."

"How do you know that?" Rong Yan asked the bandit, "Like I said I've been down this road before, the other one might look all nice, and peaceful, but its not..hog monkeys infest the road once you reach the middle." he replied.

After about fifteen minutes they reach the end of the road, and come to a large tree. Rong Yan and Yong Ten look around and see nothing but a couple of trees, bushes, and passive animals moving about. "..there's nothing here.." Rong Yan began to say.

The bandit looks at him and then smiles, puts his hand in a deep dent within the tree, and pulls on the bark, after a good hard jerk the bark reveals a rectangle doorway, the bandit signals the Avatar, the Bandit King, and the old airbender to enter first, the follow the other five bandits, and he goes in last and closes the hidden door, and closes the wooden latch.

They've finally reached the secret spirit garden sanctuary, the bandits were right its beautiful. Lush green grasses spread far out within the secret garden, a small wooden bridge crosses to the small island in the garden, where a stone arch stands on it, above with a hole at the top of the arch, rich vegetation is seen around the beautiful garden all from tomato-carrots, regular carrots, cabbages, and avocados.

The secret spirit garden, hidden in the woods.

Surrounding the small island, and large portion of the garden happened to be a pond, there was a large cliff above the garden, from the cliff fell water, it was a waterfall. The sun hits the water in the large pond, the water glistens, it looks drinkable and fresh, in the pond small koi fish swim around freely from harm, whoever built this must've lived a peaceful life, must've been an Avatar perhaps? Who knows? The air in the garden was so clean, and so fresh. This place was like, like paradise!

Rong Yan walks over the bridge and sits in a meditative position on the small island, Utsah walks over to him and says, "This is it Avatar, from here you meditate, once you enter the Spirit World, I need you to find the spirit who is causing this and talk to it, ask why it is doing this, if not find the spirit of this forest, and ask for its aid against the old man." Utsah finished, Rong Yan nodded, and Utsah walked away. The bandits all sat down, talked, or walked around the garden.

One of the men from behind had a medium-sized chest. He sets it down on the grass and opens it, inside the chest was a pai sho game board, he sticks his head into the chest, and at one of the corners, he picks a small round tile, the tile had a white lotus flower painted unto it.

He grabs the tile and sticks it into his pocket. One of the other men, walk over and sits next to the Pai Sho bandit, and the Pai Sho bandit opens the board and the other bandit helps him prepare the game for them to play.

The bandit grabs his lotus tile.

A soft shing sound is heard, and Rong Yan opens his eyes, he finally enters the Avatar State, and crossed over to the Spirit World. Utsah looks over at Rong Yan, then signals four of the men to protect him. "Protect the Avatar, while he's in the Spirit World, make sure NO ONE moves him from this spot, he is not to be moved, if so he will not find his way back to his body." Utsah shouted.

The four bandits ran over to Rong Yan's side and stood by him two at each side, looking around the garden to make sure no threats try to attack the Avatar. Yong Ten and Utsah stand twenty feet in front of the door, on the lookout, ready to blast air or swing a blade at the enemy.

Meanwhile, within the Spirit World, Rong Yan stands up from the large rock he was sitting on and jumps dowb, a splash is heard, and his feet are instantly soaked.

He begins to walk within the dank swamp like realm, then he realizes he was walking in a river. He walks on the land and walks into the woods, examining his surroundings, and he sees animals all around the area, that are just walking about minding their own business.

Rong Yan arriving at the Spirit World.

He begins to walk deeper into the woods, and suddenly hears a noise in the trees again like he did in the normal world. Then out of nowhere a large thud is heard, he flinches and moves his arms from his face, in front of him he sees Ku Tei standing there.

"Rong Yan? Is that you?" Ku Tei asked, Rong Yan nods, Ku Tei then says, "I know what you're doing here in the Spirit World, you're looking for Kai-Shek the woods spirit, he is up ahead north from here, there is a stump of a tree marked with a strange symbol.

Place your hand on the symbol and close your eyes, open them after three seconds and Kai-Shek will appear before your very eyes." Ku Tei explained. "How do you know I was looking for the spirit of the woods?" Rong Yan asked.

"Some of the lesser spirits of the woods are able to enter the mortal world sometimes to keep watch of their loved ones and protect them. They let us know what the people of the mortal world are up to. Kai-Shek is expecting you!" Ku Tei said, he then sinks into the earth and disappears.

Rong Yan walks forward, he walks up a few hills and in the far distance he sees a large stump, then across the river he sees a fortified village with walls made of wood. He begins to run towards the stump.

He kneels down by the stump and begins to examine it and search for the symbol that is engraved within the bark of the stump. He places his hand on rigid part of the stump and closes his eyes and after three seconds, he feels a breeze of air, he opens to his eyes, and there stands a tall humanoid figure, its skin color was black from its lower body, and barky from its torso up, on its head were two large branches with leaves on each large branch.

"Are you Kai-Shek?" asks Rong Yan. The tall figure looks down at him, and nods, then stares into his eyes, and replies, "Avatar, I've been expecting you. Ever since you set foot into my woods, I've been needing your aid. You see I want those people out of my woods! Those ones causing my disturbance with their dark magics! I want them out now!" Kai-Shek yelled at Rong Yan.

"It is not the villagers, it is the old man, the mayor, he-" Rong Yan replied, but then is cut off.

Kai-Shek turns to face the village, and then says, "I know Avatar, I've been aiding the old man possessing the villagers with lesser wood spirits, that is why they've been disappearing but a group of ban..DITS, have been using a strange powder to snap them out of the possession," said the angry woods spirit as it yelled out the last couple words.

"Why? Why are you aiding the old man?" Rong Yan asked, "I had no choice, his rituals retain me from doing anything, he places a relic to prevent any greater spirits from entering the village."

"Listen, Avatar you find the relic within that village, and I will enter the village, and grab the old man, and drag him into the Spirit World! Deal?" the spirit offered him a suggestion. Rong Yan looks at the spirit and nods.

"Thank you, Kai-Shek, for the talk." Rong Yan replied, "You're welcome, Avatar." Kai-Shek finished the conversation and then fades away. Rong Yan sits on the stump and meditates, back in the mortal world, his eyes close, and again they open.

Rong Yan stands up and walks over to Utsah, "It is done, I have spoken with Kai-Shek the spirit of these woods, he was furious with the old man, he's glad that he can assist us. He will rid of the old man." Rong Yan said.

They leave the garden, and begin to walk towards the woods, nightfall hits after they reach the camp, and they get reinforcements. The whole bandit gang is just above a hill thirty yards away from the village. Utsah sets down a large map of the village, and plans out the mission.

"Okay, men this battle, will determine the fate of the woods and the villagers, and us that is if we fail, if we win these woods it will become peaceful like it was before the Mayor got here. Here's the plan, my master swordsman will have himself and his men go in first, the archers here will pin down any individuals fighting off my men, Monk Yong Ten you must enter the village on your glider find the effigy and destroy it, the rest of the bandits on my go, will run in and capture the village for the short moment, then I and the Avatar will remove the Mayor from power." Utsah explained, looking over at Rong Yan, who nodded.

"Let us win this battle!" yelled Utsah, in response to his words, the bandits raised their weapons and cheered, a moment of silence occurred. Meanwhile, the mayor heard the cheering of crowd outside of the village, he gave a grinning smile, as he scrunched his eyebrows.

The Mayor brought out a black book with a purple ribbon hanging off the book with half of the ribbon inside the book out of a bookshelf. The Mayor grabbed bones, and tossed them on the small altar, the bones cracked making a cracking sound..crack...crack...crack, he then opened the book and began chanting some strange words. Out from the altar appeared three green spirits, with a large bone he held in his hand he pointed the spirits out the door.

The Mayor's summons lesser spirits to possess the villagers.

The spirits quickly levitated out of his house, and went to random villagers homes. From the hill that Rong Yan, Yong Ten, Utsah, and his bandits were settled on they could see purple flashes coming from the village. Then orange, then green flashes came. Utsah made a signal, his bandits readied their weapons, "Ready..." Utsah said then paused, "...CHARGE!!" he then yelled out the order.

The "Waiter" and his swordsmen charged down the hill into the village, the master swordsmen ran in with two large blades, and began fighting off the possessed villagers, the possessed villagers fought with blades, and some with large hammers.

One of the villagers almost stabbed the master swordsman but in time he dodged the fatal blow and he clashed his dual swords, with the large sword of the villager that almost killed him.

The master swordsman with his dual swords.

Utsah looked over to Yong Ten, he gave him a slight nod, and the airbender tapped his staff on the ground, which quickly turned into a glider, he ran to the edge of the hill and jumped onto his glider and flew off.

Two bandits were surrounded by four villagers, and out from the sky came arrows that pinned down three villagers, and struck one of them in the chest, he fell to the floor dead. The two bandits getting up heard screaming from behind them as they turned around, the villagers were coming at them with large axes.

They were good as dead, suddenly, a large blast of air came from the left and blew one of the villagers to a large rock within the village, cracking his skull he died of a hemorrhage.

Yong Ten blasting air at the villagers. Saving the bandits lives.

The other gets back up and starts swinging the axe violently towards Yong Ten, circling his hands and creating a small twister, he blows another blast of air at the small twister and sending it off to the villager, the villager spins really quick, and then becomes dizzy, picking up his weapon, he starts to suffocate and falls on his knees gasping for air, Yong Ten raises his right arm into the air and closes his fist, the man falls over dead.

Yong Ten shakes his head in disgrace, a man sneaks behind Yong Ten ready to assassinate him, then a fire ball hits the man, knocking him off to his side, dropping his weapon, that slightly cuts his arm.

The fireball that Rong Yan shoots to save Yong Ten.

Yong Ten looks to where the direction of the fireball came and sees Rong Yan fighting off the villagers, Utsah jumped in the circle and began to throw axes at the villagers. A man runs towards Utsah, Utsah counters as he quickly pulls out a dagger and stabs the villager in the stomach, and watches him fall to the floor bleeding.

Yong Ten rides on his glider again and goes behind the house where Utsah lives, and sees a small ornament hanging on a tree, "This must be the relic." Yong Ten whispered.

"Yes, of course it is, airbender..do you think I'd let you destroy my relic?" asked the Mayor, Yong Ten inhaled air and then held his breath, turned to face the Mayor and blew the air out of his mouth, sending the old man flying out onto the streets, Yong Ten runs towards the tree and grabs the relic, drops it on the ground and stomps on it, instantly breaking it.

Arrows fly in from the hill south of the village and pin down more villagers, one of them pinning down the Mayor, and another arrow lands and lodges next to the Mayor's head into the dirt.

Utsah's Bandit Archers, shooting arrows into the village, to pin down villagers.

The Mayor begins to dislodge the arrow from his robes, as he removes it he attempts to reach for his book which fell from his robes and scattered itself across the ground twenty feet away from him, and attempts to crawl towards it. But then a boot steps on his right hand, hearing a cracking sound, the old man shouts in pain and looks up seeing a young man, with a hood over his head.

"...U-U-Utsah..no you're dead.." the old man cried out, twisting his foot on the old man's hand making it crack again, he reaches out for a small dagger, and stabs the mayor's right hand with the blade.

The old man cries out in pain, then he looks over to Rong Yan. Rong Yan kneels down to pick up the Mayor's grimoire and in his hands burns it, then drops the ashes on the ground. The Mayor screams, "NOOOOO!!"

The fighting ensues, with more bandits and villagers dying by the minute, they hear a strange noise coming from the woods, a large dark green humanoid begins to come into the village at a fast pace.

The old man looks up and gets up unable to move his right hand, he still manages to stand up, he leans on walking staff and taps the ground twice, the once dead villagers rise up, one of them backstabs one of the bandits, the bandits falls to his knees with the sword in his back and falls dead.

Kai-Shek passes by the villagers, and each of the villagers fighting off the bandits fall unconscious, even the newly risen villagers fall unconscious, the bandits see eerie green essences come out of the bodies from the villagers and fly southeast in the woods.

Kai-Shek confronts the old man, face to face, the old man covers his face from the spirit in a frightening state, and runs away only to be stopped by the spirit who appears in front of him.

Kai-Shek grabs him from his wrinkled, dirty, and dried feet and drags him out of the village, he screams for help and begins to struggle to no avail he cannot get away from the spirit, the spirit laughs maniacally, and turns him over.

The Mayor, claws at the dirt by the river, and screams and is he then dragged into the river. Never to be seen again. The villagers regain consciousness and rub their heads, looking at the bandits in a blurred vision who then raise their weapons and roar in victory.

Utsah then sees his wife who runs toward him crying, "Utsah,...oh Utsah I thought I would never..ever see you again, my love," said the young woman. Who then hugs her husband tightly, still crying in his arms.

They release and Utsah turns to look at Rong Yan, who then bows and says, "Thank you, Avatar Rong Yan." The villagers who were possessed reunite with the former bandits, who all then hug each other, and wives kiss their husbands and children run to hug their fathers.

Rong Yan, runs into the Mayor's old home, and burns the altar and anything having to do with the Mayor's evil doings. The sun begins to rise over the trees, and the day is brightly lightened by the Sun.

Birds fly by the village and perch onto the roofs of the village homes, and begin chirping. The village was restored to its peaceful state, before the old man had moved in.

The air in the village was so fresh, and so good. Children were outside playing, and running around. The men went back to rebuilding their homes, and women did chores, and stayed home and did home-like things.

Rong Yan and Yong Ten gathered their things, and placed them in Jippo's saddle. Rong Yan relaxing in Jippo's saddle, then looked over to Utsah's wife yelling at them to get their attention, she was carrying a medium-sized basket, with meats, vegetables, fruits, rice, and nuts, handing it to Rong Yan who placed the basket beside him.

"Have a safe journey, Avatar. Thank you for all you have done, for our village." the young woman says, bowing down to Rong Yan and begins to walk away, Yong Ten snaps the reins on the sky bison, "Yip Yip Jippo." Yong Ten said, Jippo lifts off the ground, and flies up into the sky over the trees of the woods, and heads north.